Fangirl

“Wren!” Cath knocked one of the guy’s arms away, and he pulled back, nonplussed. “Are you okay?”

“Cath?” Wren was holding a bottle of dark beer halfway up to her mouth like her arm was stuck there. “What are you doing here?”

“You told me to come.”

Wren huffed. Her face was flushed, and she had drunk, droopy eyelids. “I didn’t tell you anything.”

“You sent me a text,” Cath said, glowering up at the big guy until he took another step back. “‘Come to Muggsy’s. Nine-one-one.’”

“Shit.” Wren pulled her phone out of her jeans and looked down at it. She had to stare at it for a second before she could focus. “That was for Courtney. Wrong C.”

“Wrong C?” Cath froze, then threw her hands into the air. “Are you kidding me?”

“Hey,” somebody said.

They both turned. A fratty-looking guy was standing a foot away, nodding his head at them. He curled his lip and gri

“Fuck off,” Wren said, turning back to her sister. “Look, I’m sorry—”

“Are you in trouble?” Cath asked.

“No,” Wren said. “No, no, no…”

“Pretty hot,” the guy said.

“Then why the nine-one-one?” Cath demanded.

“Because I wanted Courtney to come quick.” Wren waved her beer bottle toward the stage. “The guy she likes is here.”

“Dude, check it out. Hot twins.”

“Nine-one-one is for emergencies!” Cath shouted. It was so loud in here, you had to shout; it made it way too easy to lose your temper.

“Do you really think that’s appropriate?” Cath heard Levi say in his smiling-for-strangers voice.

“Fucking twins, man. That’s the fantasy, right?”

“Take a pill, Cath,” Wren said, rubbing her eyes with the back of her hand. “It’s not like I actually called nine-one-one.”

“You realize that they’re sisters, right?” Levi said, his voice getting tighter. “You’re talking about incest.”

The guy laughed. “No, I’m talking about buying them drinks until they start making out.”

“Is that what happens with you and your sister?” Levi stepped away from Cath, toward the guy and his friend. “Who fucking raised you?”

“Levi, don’t.” Cath pulled on his jacket. “This happens all the time.”

“This happens all the time?” His eyebrows jerked up in the middle, and he turned on the guy.…

“These two girls have parents. They have a father. And he should never have to worry that they’re going to end up in a bar, debasing themselves for some pervert who still jerks off to Girls Gone Wild videos. That’s not something a father should ever have to think about.”

The pervy guy wasn’t paying attention. He leered drunkenly over Levi’s shoulder at Cath and Wren. Wren flipped him off, and he arched his lip again.

Levi stepped closer to the guy’s table. “You don’t get to look at them that way, just because they look alike. You fucking pervert.”

Another fratty guy stepped up, carrying three beers, and glanced over. He gri

“Fucking fantasy,” the first guy said.

Then, before anyone saw him coming, the guy standing next to Wren—the big one who had been caging her in—stepped past Levi and plowed the drunk pervert right in the chin.

Levi looked up at the big guy and gri

The pervy guy’s friends were already helping him off the floor.

Levi took Cath’s sleeve and started pushing Jandro into the crowd. Jandro dragged Wren behind him. “Come on,” Levi said, “out, out, out.”

Cath could hear the perv shouting curses behind them.

“Oh, fuck you, Flowers in the Attic!” Levi shouted back.

They practically fell through the front door. The bouncer stood up. “Everything cool, Levi?”

“Drunks,” Levi said, shaking his head. Yackle headed back into the bar.

Wren was already out on the sidewalk, shouting at the big guy. At Jandro. Was he her date, Cath wondered, or was he just somebody who threw a punch for her?

“I can’t believe you did that,” Wren said. “You could get arrested.” She hit his arm, and he let her.

Levi hit Jandro’s other arm in a kind of salute. They were about the same height, but Jandro was broader, a dark-haired guy—probably Mexican, Cath thought—wearing a red Western shirt.

“Who’s going to get arrested?” someone asked. Cath spun around. Courtney. Clomping toward them in five-inch pink heels. “Why are you guys standing outside in this shit?”

“We’re not,” Cath said, “we’re leaving.”

“But I just got here,” Courtney whined. She looked at Wren, “Is Noah in there?”

“We’re leaving,” Cath said to Wren. “You’re drunk.”

“Yes—” Wren held up her beer bottle. “—finally.”

“Whoa, there,” Levi said, snagging the bottle and dropping it into a trash can behind her. “Open container.”

“That was my beer,” Wren objected.

“A little louder there, jailbait. I don’t think every cop on the street heard you.” He was smiling.

Cath wasn’t. “You’re drunk,” she said. “You’re going home.”

“No. Cath. I’m not. I’m drunk, and I’m staying out. That’s the whole fucking point of being out.” She swayed, and Courtney giggled and put her arm around her. Wren looked at her roommate and started giggling, too.

“Everything’s ‘the whole fucking point’ with you,” Cath said quietly. The sleet was hitting her cheeks like gravel. Wren had tiny pieces of ice in her hair. “I’m not leaving you alone like this,” Cath said.

“I’m not alone,” Wren replied.

“It’s okay, Cath.” Courtney’s smile couldn’t be more patronizing. Or more coated in pink lipstick. “I’m here, Han Solo’s here—” She smiled up flirtily at Jandro. “—the night is young.”

“The night is young!” Wren sang, laying her head against Courtney’s arm.

“I can’t just…” Cath shook her head.

“It’s fucking freezing out here.” Courtney hugged Wren again. “Come on.”

“Not Muggsy’s,” Jandro said, starting to walk away. He glanced back at Cath, and for a second she thought he was going to say something, but he kept on walking. Wren and Courtney followed him. Courtney clomped. Wren didn’t look back.

Cath watched them walk up the block and disappear under another broken neon sign. She wiped the ice off her cheeks.

“Hey,” she heard someone say after a cold, wet minute. Levi. Still standing behind her.

“Let’s go,” Cath said, looking down at the sidewalk. On top of everything else that was going wrong right this minute, Levi must think she was an idiot. Cath’s pajama pants were soaked, and the wind was blowing right through them. She shivered.

Levi walked past her, taking her hood and pulling it up over her head on his way. She followed him to his truck. Now that she realized how cold she was, her teeth were starting to chatter.

“I’ve got it,” she said when Levi tried to help her in. She waited for him to walk away before heaving herself up onto the seat. Levi slid behind the wheel and started the truck, cranking up the heat and the windshield wipers, and holding his hands up to the vents. “Seat belt,” he said after a minute.

“Oh, sorry…” Cath dug for the seat belt.

She buckled up. The truck still didn’t move.

“You did the right thing, you know.”

Levi.

“No,” Cath said. “I don’t know.”

“You had to go check on her. Nine-one-one is nine-one-one.”

“And then I left her—completely wasted—with a stranger and a moron.”

“That guy didn’t seem like a stranger,” Levi said.

Cath almost laughed. Because he hadn’t argued with the moron part. “I’m her sister. I’m supposed to look out for her.”

“Not against her will.”

“What if she passes out?”

“Does that happen a lot?”

Cath looked over at him. His hair was wet, and you could see the tracks where he’d pushed his fingers through it.

“I don’t want to talk about this anymore,” she said.